Robert Schwandt is a candidate for Alvord Unified School District’s Trustee Area 5 seat on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Julie Moreno is a candidate for Alvord Unified School District’s Trustee Area 3 seat on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Sound

The gallery will resume inseconds

Donna K. Wandro, 45, of Riverside, is running for Alvord Unified School District’s board in Trustee Area 3 in the Nov. 4 election.

Greg Kraft is a candidate for Alvord Unified School District’s Trustee Area 5 seat on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Art Kaspereen is a candidate for Alvord Unified School District’s Trustee Area 1 seat on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Mia Villeta Alvarado is a candidate for Alvord Unified School District’s Trustee Area 1 seat on the Nov. 4 ballot.

The Alvord Unified School District has board seats in three trustee areas on the Nov. 4 ballot. Six candidates are running in the school district that covers parts of west Riverside, west Home Gardens and east Corona.

Keeping parents, the community, teachers and staff better informed and raising test scores are top issues for Alvord school board candidates.

“I think if we can improve communication, we can improve transparency and we can improve student success,” candidate Donna K. Wandro said.

Six candidates are running in three trustee areas on the Nov. 4 ballot. Alvord Unified School District, with more than 19,000 students, includes parts of west Riverside, west Home Gardens and east Corona.

Parent volunteer and business owner Mia Villeta Alvarado and Art Kaspereen, a board member and retired Alvord High School counselor, are on the ballot for Trustee Area 1, which covers the northwest part of the district.

Wandro, a parent volunteer and health caregiver, is running against parent volunteer and business owner Julie Moreno in Trustee Area 3, which covers an area east of La Sierra Avenue, south of Gramercy Place and Wells Avenue and north of Magnolia Avenue.

Retired executive and community volunteer Robert Schwandt is challenging longtime incumbent Greg Kraft in Trustee Area 4, which is east of Buchanan Street. Highway 91 runs through Trustee Area 4.

Moreno said she is running because she wants students, parents and residents to share a sense of pride in the Alvord community, where she and her husband have lived for 22 years and opened a business.

“I just feel so many of our community members and students feel they’ve been left out of the loop on so many decisions,” Moreno said. “We need to also be willing to listen to our community, these parents and our children.”

Both of her children graduated as valedictorians at La Sierra High School. Her son graduated in 2013 and is at UCLA; her daughter graduated last June and is now at UC Santa Barbara.

“I want to bring back to our school board the sense of family and community that was once there,” Moreno said.

Wandro shared a similar theme, saying Alvord is “so much more than just a collection of schools.”

“We’re a community,” she said.

Wandro has also served on districtwide advisory committees, including the school calendar committee, financial committee and strategic planning committee. Her endorsements include the Riverside Sheriff’s Association.

Kaspereen agreed the school board needs to listen more, especially to teachers and school employees.

“No one person has all the ideas,” he said.

Kaspereen said he would be the only educator on the board if he’s re-elected. Alvarado opposes the district’s decision to rent office space in Corona, saying the lease is too expensive when the district owns land on which it could build or place portables.

Alvarado’s parents were from the Dominican Republic and pushed her and her sister to go to college. Though she has lost her accent, she said she didn’t speak English when she started school. She remembers translating for her mother when she was in kindergarten.

“I am the demographic of my community,” she said.

Alvarado said she and her husband have owned their home in Trustee Area 1 for more than 20 years. She said Kaspereen moved there right before the board adopted trustee areas, which were created to prevent lawsuits under the state and federal Voting Rights Acts.

Kaspereen said he moved to help his son, who moved into his parents’ larger house. The son had taken a job as a counselor at Norte Vista High School after being laid off in another district, had one child and another on the way. Kaspereen and his wife then found a single-story home to rent while she recovered from surgery.

Kraft and Schwandt both said student achievement needs to improve, especially when compared to adjacent Corona-Norco and Riverside unified school districts.

“We’re in last place in graduation rate and college preparation,” Schwandt said. He said elementary and middle schools have programs to help struggling students and the high schools need more.

Kraft said test scores and graduation rates have been going up and now exceed the state average but must improve more. Alvord has higher percentages of low-income, Hispanic and transient students than the other two districts, “but we brought in a superintendent who knows how to deal with it,” he said.

Kraft, a 22-year board member, said his experience is needed in a time of transition to Common Core State Standards, a new state funding formula and new accountability system.

Alvord cut elementary music programs before the state budget crisis that began in 2008. Both candidates said they support more music and choir programs.

Schwandt’s wife, Beth, teaches music at Hillcrest High. His son Rob is a math teacher at Villegas Middle School. He said he would recuse himself from voting on any issues that would affect his family. Family members also keep him involved in district schools. The real issue is whether board members conduct themselves with integrity, he said.

Schwandt said his experience in finance would be an asset to the board.